These catastrophes are the realities of 21st-century America. Dealing with them is every bit as important — maybe even more so — than the recent health-care reform battled for and achieved. Health care is expensive, but if there is no economy to generate cash to pay the bills, all the availability in the world is not worth much.

President Obama should worry less about being the great reconciler, and should act as the scourge of the special interests. He can do it — unless those interests have gotten to him, too.

Water, water everywhere
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority chief Frederick Laskey and his staff deserve the highest praise for the low-key, no-nonsense, and highly effective way in which they responded to the recent drinking-water emergency.

Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino also deserve a round of applause. Grassroots response was speedy and designed to reassure a potentially panicky public. It worked.

There were a few news reports of scuffles over bottled water and isolated incidents of price gouging. But those were aberrations, reminders that the nervous and the avaricious will always walk among the calmer majority.

That most of the emergency tap-supplied water was potable anyway may raise a few eyebrows among soreheads. But it should not. If you’re one of those still cranky about being unable to buy your cherished morning coffee from your vendor of choice, keep this grandmotherly advice in mind: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

MERCY AND SAL DIMASI | March 13, 2013 When it comes to showing a modicum of mercy to some of those convicted of federal crimes, Barack Obama is shaping up to have the worst track record of any president in recent memory.

NEXT, MARRIAGE EQUALITY | March 05, 2013 On March 27 and 28, the US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two cases that could essentially put America on the road to full marriage equality.

THUS SPAKE MARKEY | February 26, 2013 Last week, Congressman Ed Markey inadvertently injected some daring political thinking and a touch of historical imagination into the race to fill the US Senate seat vacated by John Kerry's appointment as secretary of state.

DRONES: 10 THOUGHTS | February 20, 2013 Foreign drone attacks are almost (but not quite yet) as American as apple pie.